


You Never Did

by bloodylaundromat (cryforclarence)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Coping, F/M, Infidelity, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 09:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1184538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryforclarence/pseuds/bloodylaundromat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock cheats on John, and John doesn't know if he can forgive him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Never Did

**Author's Note:**

> AU where Sherlock’s come back from the dead about nine months ago. Sherlock and John got married after three months of dating, which began when Sherlock returned and they realized how much they cared about each other. Inspired by a gifset [by mycroftly.](http://mycroftly.tumblr.com/post/71998617590/you-never-did-au-john-knows-that-sherlock)

"Why today?" she asked. 

"Do you want to hear me say it?" John smiled bitterly and gritted his teeth. He had been doing that so often now that he was surprised he hadn’t yet worn them away entirely. 

"Eighteen months since our last appointment."

"Don’t play dumb. You know why I’m here. You keep tabs on everything that happens in my life because, supposedly, you  _care_.” John finally looked up at his therapist’s face. “I’m here because -” But he couldn’t finish the sentence. He looked down at the horrendous, paisley rug and glared at that instead.

"What happened, John?"

"Sherlock…" He took in a deep breath.

"You need to get it out."

"My best friend, Sherlock Holmes… the love of my life and the entirety of my existence, has broken me."

⌘⌘⌘

Sherlock paced around the sitting room quietly. John sat in his chair drinking a cup of tea. There was a slight rhythm to Sherlock’s footsteps, as there always was, but there was something  _urgent_ about this one in particular, as if something was very, very, wrong. John looked up at Sherlock and grinned.

"Case stumping you?" he said, smiling. 

"Case? What case?" 

"Um, the one you’re working on now, I think." Sherlock waved a hand at John impatiently.

"No, no, no, I’m not on a case. I’m thinking." He turned away again. John shrugged, and returned to his paper.

⌘⌘⌘

After a particularly stressful day at work, John came stumping up the stairs to 221B Baker Street hoping to have a nice cuppa, shower, and go right to bed. But when he saw the fumes spilling under the door from inside the flat, he knew a quiet night was nothing more than a pipe dream. 

"God,  _Sherlock!_ " John yelled, throwing the door open. Sherlock looked up from where he was poking at something with a pair of forceps in the kitchen. The refrigerator was open, and something horrible was splattered inside. John remembered the leftover spaghetti puttanesca he had saved from last night’s dinner out, and he mourned its loss. But he was far angrier about the  _innocent_ look on Sherlock’s face. The bloody cock! He  _dares_ to - John clenched his fists and steadied himself.

"Sherlock, was the  _hell_ is going on here?” he asked, voice deadly soft. Before Sherlock could answer, he continued. “Didn’t you tell me you had that lab downstairs now?”

Sherlock grimaced. “Oh, that thing’s hardly a lab. And anyway -“

"Didn’t you  _promise_ me you wouldn’t do anything like this again?” John’s voice was rising in volume, no matter how hard he was working to keep his tone civil. “Look at the flat, Sherlock. It’s a wreck. Because of  _you_.”

"John, I was trying to make you dinner, that’s all. But it seems I failed to notice that -"

"No, I’m not having this. Just get out, Sherlock. Go blaze up with your homeless friends or whatever you do when you’re not  _ruining our home._ I’ll clean this all up before Mrs Hudson wakes up, and then you can come back.” John turned away and began getting the cleaning supplies from under the sink. There was very little left of them, because Sherlock liked to use them in his experiments, but they would have to do.

"John, please -"

“ _Out_.” Sherlock went.

⌘⌘⌘

John and Sherlock had known that married life would be hard. They loved each other more than anyone in the world; it would have to work, wouldn’t it? But there were always quarrels, often too many to count, sometimes more than twice a day. The sex had ended way back; Sherlock was always working, and they found that they hardly had time for each other. John would never forget the most recent time they’d tried. Sherlock had gotten up in the middle, shouted “Bored!” and ran off to read a book on poisonous fungi.

He chose poisonous fungi over his own husband. John wouldn’t have minded if Sherlock told him he was too tired, or simply didn’t want to have sex; John would definitely have stopped. But for Sherlock to do something so  _rude_ and  _insensitive_  - well, it certainly was a Sherlock thing to do. 

"Should have known he’d get bored of me sooner or later," John thought bitterly. He tried to give Sherlock a kiss as he left to go to St Bart’s, and Sherlock kissed him back, but it was quick, unfeeling, almost nervous. Sherlock left in a whirl of black coat, looking jumpy and excited for whatever he planned on doing to mummified animal corpses at the lab. He was so distracted that he didn’t even look at John. He hardly did anymore, his eyes shifting away whenever John begged him to look him in the eye. When John complained he didn’t pay attention to him anymore, Sherlock told him it was because of work.

"You’re not really going to get so worked up when the safety of the whole of England is in my hands?" Sherlock asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"I’m not saying you should stop working, Sherlock, I’m just saying you should stop being an utter prick to the man  _you_ claim to love!” John stomped out of the flat then, muttering something about going out for a large amount of drinks with Greg and Mike.

⌘⌘⌘

Strangely enough, it was when John was falling over himself, piss drunk in the back of a cab, that the truth hit him. Sherlock refusing sex, avoiding eye contact, seemingly devoid of even the smallest amount of affection, rushing off at strange times of the day. He was cheating on him. Sherlock was seeing someone else, and  _more than once._

"Oh god," John huffed. He felt his eyes begin to tear, his face contort as it tried to keep them in. He tightened his fists and took deep, steady breaths. He tapped on the shoulder of the cabbie. "Can we take a quick detour to St Bartholomew’s Hospital?"

⌘⌘⌘

At St Bart’s, John knocked on the door to Molly’s office, and sighed in relief when she opened it.

"Hello, John! What - what are you doing here?" John noticed that she, too, seemed nervous.

"Wait, is it you?" John asked in confusion. He knew Sherlock held Molly in high esteem, but did they really -

"No, oh god, no, I would never -"

"So you know, then. Who is it?" 

"Shit," Molly sighed. She shook her head. "I can’t tell, John. I promised. Please, just go home."

"Sherlock promised me something, too, Molly - or did I  _imagine_ the marriage vows?” John was losing patience. He grabbed Molly’s arm roughly and forced her to look at him. The notion that he might be hurting her was hurled out of his consciousness as quickly as it arrived. He didn’t care. He felt like he could kill someone over this. Sherlock, with someone else.  _His_ Sherlock. Or so he had thought. But had he ever been?

"Fine! Fine, John. Please let go of me," Molly finally said. John released her, and she went back into her office, to her desk. She pulled out a log, and flipped to a page marked with the date a few weeks before. She pointed to a entry, and turned the log around so John could read it. Next to the name of the lab he preferred to use, Sherlock’s name was written in Molly’s perfect handwriting. But yet another name was after Sherlock’s. John choked on his own breath.

"I’m required to record everyone who comes in to use the labs. Since that date, Sherlock’s been coming in with… him."

"For  _weeks_?” John gasped. He watched as Molly turned the pages. Almost every day, there was Sherlock’s name - and someone else’s.

"I’m so sorry, John. I only found out recently, when I heard the… noises. Otherwise, I would have - I would have…" Molly trailed off.

"Otherwise you would have told me? Don’t make me laugh, Molly Hooper. You love him, too. Telling me would be the fucking  _last_ thing you’d have done,” John spat. He walked out of the office and back to the cab, which was waiting for him outside.

"221B Baker Street, as fast as you can," he told the cabbie. The log entry flashed sickeningly in his mind, over and over.

“ _Laboratory 110, Sherlock Holmes and Richard Brook,_ " over and over.

“ _Sherlock Holmes and Richard Brook.”_  John buried his face in his hands.

"Jim, you bloody skank," John hissed into his palms.

⌘⌘⌘

John threw open the door to his flat. Sherlock was sitting on the couch, as if waiting. He smiled, stood, and walked to John, arms wide.

"You were gone awhile. I missed you," Sherlock said, and actually tried to hug him. John twitched away.

"Missed me, did you? You could have just phoned up ‘Richard Brook;’ I’m sure you wouldn’t have been lonely then," John said, poison dripping from every word. Sherlock stepped back.

"Molly told you?"

"She told me who when I asked her. It wasn’t hard to realize you were cheating on me. You really think I’m that stupid, Sherlock?" John cried. "She told me she didn’t know, either, until she heard  _the noises._  Tell me they were something else. Tell me it was you beating the shit out of him, Sherlock, tell me you weren’t really fucking him. Tell me it isn’t true.”

"John, I can -" Sherlock began.

"What, explain? Yes, I want you to! He tried to kill me, and Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade - he tried to kill  _you_ , Sherlock. You’re demisexual - what emotional connection could you have with him? It can’t be true. Tell me it’s not true. Molly imagined the entire thing, right?” John yelled now. “Tell me, Sherlock! Say it!”

"I can’t!" Sherlock screamed. John felt himself break a little at that. He willed his lip to stop twitching as he leaned back against the wall. He wouldn’t cry, not now. Not ever. Sherlock was looking him in the eyes now, but for all the wrong reasons. "Because it’s true. Jim… he visited me one night when you were out. Believe me, I wanted to call the police to lock him up for good, but I needed to ask him how he survived a bullet in the mouth. We started talking, and it ended up… oh god, John, I’m… I’m so sorry. Jim and I, we’re so alike, and I didn’t realize it until then -"

"I can’t believe it." John shook his head and started pacing the sitting room floor. Suddenly, he savagely kicked over the coffee table, sending a few cups crashing to the floor. He didn’t care. He wanted to scream, he wanted to punch everything. He wanted to jump off a building.

"I know. I screwed up. I never meant to hurt you. One thing led to another, John. I didn’t think -"

"You didn’t think? Oh that’s rich. The great Sherlock Holmes  _didn’t think_ that cheating on his husband, the man who’s killed for him, who waited three years for him, thinking he was dead -” John laughed dryly. “No, you never thought that it would hurt me.”

"It was stupid and wrong, and you have every right to hate me, but John, I love you and -" Sherlock was crying now. 

"No. No, you don’t." Sherlock looked disgusting.  _He_ should be the one crying. “You never did.”

He walked close to where Sherlock was kneeling on the floor. Sherlock looked up at him hopefully. But John had no forgiveness. He spat cruelly on his face.

"Fuck. You." John stood and walked out of the flat.

⌘⌘⌘

John came back for his things a few days later. He moved back into the tiny army-issued flat he’d used to live in. He cursed himself for ever thinking he should leave it. It was beautiful. There wasn’t an ounce of Sherlock in sight. He burned everything that reminded him of the consulting detective, down to the knitted jumpers he had loved seeing him in, down to the mug he’d let him drink out of once. 

John went to frequent sessions with his old therapist, and surprisingly, she did help him. He ignored all of Sherlock’s attempts to contact him, and soon found himself getting ready to move to America. He’d leave it all behind. Soon, Sherlock Holmes would be a thing of John Watson’s past, something hazy and mostly forgotten. Filed under “unimportant,” with his memories of young officers and innocent children wilting in his arms, half their faces blow away, his father throwing his sister against the wall, when she came home with her first girlfriend.

He returned to the medical profession in New York, and met a wonderful woman named Mary, who also had come in from England. They married after a year of dating, and had a baby girl named Anna, who got to be the flower girl at Harry’s wedding when she was five. John was living the good life. One day, he came home from work to an empty house. Mary was having a massage, and Anna was at a friend’s house. He made himself a cup of tea and sat down to read the paper. He would have a quiet night, just the way he liked it. 

But for the first time in ages, his quiet night was interrupted. The door to the apartment swung open, and the man behind it grinned at him. John tasted blood.

"Hello, Johnny. Did you miss me?"

 


End file.
